Mind & Brain

One in six people are thought to experience loneliness, and that can have a serious knock-on effect on their mental and physical health

A fundamental law of human language has now been found in both songbirds and whales

An active ingredient in magic mushrooms, psilocybin has shown early promise for treating eating disorders

A high-profile court case is calling attention to this rare and understudied condition

Smell can bring back vivid childhood memories—the so-called Proust’s madeleine phenomenon—and neuroscientists now think they know why

Neuroscientists show how the brain weighs effort against reward when we’re mentally fatigued

During a lost ‘golden age’ of language, humans may have spoken tens of thousands of different tongues, a new study suggests

A new skull-based analysis of Neanderthal brains suggests that these ancient hominins’ range of intelligence largely overlapped with our own

The “hero’s journey” narrative structure seen in the ancient Greek story can help people make meaning in their own lives

Spoonerisms are among the most well-known speech errors, and for linguists and psychologists they offer a glimpse into how our brains produce speech

Tennis players can return high-speed balls using a combination of reaction and predicting the future

New research identifies five distinct sleep subtypes, revealing links between brain patterns, behavior and health